2023 Austrailia Boris Yammy

 It was a bit of a convoluted trip from Nong Khai to our last destination Pak Chong and nearby Kao Yai Park. After two cities , two minibus trips and an ordinary rail trip with endless stops, we arrived at Pak Chong and were picked up by a driver and brought to our simple guest house. From here we took a couple of tours into and around Kao Yai Park. It was our last little bit of birding and we were fortunate to see some good birds and quite a bit of wildlife.  The last hour before we left the park we were fortunate to see 5 gaur run across a field into the forest. They are a very large water buffalo like creature, the toughest thing in the forest. When the plunged into the forest they flushed out 8 asiatic elephants. Despite their size elephants are not that easy to see.    Gibbon Great Hornbill This picture does not capture it. This is a stream of 2 million bats leaving their cave for an evening outing. Anyways we had a great time at the park and then it was off to ...

 Across the Mekong River from Vientiane is the border town on Nong Khai. Unlike a lot of border towns it is very clean and has lots of amenities to attract tourists.

 Despite being the capitol of Laos Vientiane alway seems like a laid back village. There are lots of trees, old buildings and not too many soaring skyscrapers. We spent a couple of days before we crossed back into Thailand. 

When we came here the first time, it was known as the party capital of Laos. Young western tourists would float down the river in inner tubes, stopping periodically to ingest drugs and booze. Then a few tourists overdosed and drowned, bad for business. The nice thing about a communist dictatorship is that you don't have to have an endless consultation period.  Overnight no more drugs and booze on the river. Our second trip here was during this period. It was very peaceful . Then the Chinese built the bullet train Then the government gave up on covid restrictions. Now the Chinese tourist hordes are swarming over the landscape. Anyways we were only here for a couple of days. To back up a little. That bullet train was amazing. It seemed like about three quarters of the trip from Luang Prabang was through tunnels. We averaged about 160 kph. In other areas on the trip from the Chinese border it does 200 kph.